Anti-heroism

I've been thinking about this for a couple weeks now. I was content to sleep in the back until the holidays and the cooler weather kicks in, but then the noise woke me up. Oh, how I hate to be awakened early. I've also heard it mentioned lately that if one has a voice, never be afraid to use it. So what the hell, instead of going out on a Saturday night, I thought I'd stay in and make an evening of expressing myself.

Recently my attention has been drawn to the archetypes of superheroes, supervillains, and what defines them. Personally in matters of fiction and Schadenfreude, I like the anti-hero. The bad boys, the ones not afraid to use the same tactics as villains to achieve what they believe to be a just cause. Or maybe they're simply focusing on a grudge and see the likeness of their particular cause at the end of their fist or weapon. It's pleasant to watch such visceral heroes. How we love to live vicariously through them.

In recent weeks, a focus has been put in my scope over people dressing like superheroes, yet acting like vigilantes, and criminals in real life. This of course is illegal, giving people who are genuinely attempting to emulate the best qualities of their heroes in costume through charities or PR a bad name. Not so good overall if one is doing the same as the Ku Klux Klan in the name of 'justice'. I do admit though, from an outside perspective, it's amusing to watch. I've even known of social darwinists that spar with swords, clubs and real archaic weapons. WITH NO PADDING, ARMOR OR PROTECTION. Absolutely idiotic, but if there is something positive to say about them is at least they're committed. You have to respect that. True contenders for henchmen or lackeys if ever I heard of them. Give them a case of beer with the promise of a stronger bottle afterwards and you could have a force dumb enough and driven enough to do anything. Especially acts of terror.

I'll focus on that later. Let me get back on topic. You see, we've established that there are some people who call themselves heroes who act like villains. Villains we like to watch and read about, but it sucks if we happen to know them or are in the firing range of friendly fire. Some have publicly renounced them in the hero community. Others feel like striking out, putting a spotlight upon them, calling them out, being their antithesis. So how do they do this? They claim to be supervillains.

Mmmphh(snicker). Sorry, I can't help but laugh.

Okay, so we have people who call themselves good guys but are acting like bad guys, and giving the good guys a bad name. So to counter the good guys acting like bad guys, a group of socially concerned(snicker) people try to bring their actions to conscious light by calling themselves bad guys?

That's one of the stupidest fucking things I've ever heard.

Now I admit, there's something to be said for playing the role of bad guy. In the story, it presents drama, commentary, an antagonist to rally against. The role of the Heel in wrestling is quite important. It moves the story along, building the energy and pace to a crescendo and ultimately chapters of conflict with a resounding resolution, and perhaps the chance to have the tales told again in sequels. I can respect those who purposely call themselves the villain for the right reasons. To confront a social injustice, to invoke change, or even to better someone through the conflict. To be an opponent, to challenge the nature of one to confront ideologies, ideas, a challenge of wits and skills to ultimately have both parties having mutual respect for one another at the end. This I like.

But wannabes? Tch tch tch.

Recently a conflagration has come between a group of people calling themselves supervillains and folks of a more heroic slant raging against each other in words. Such outrage, such division of party lines, rallying to the defense of their respective sides. This is when I was made aware of all this. My roommate was looking into this, and I was awakened from the din.

Then came the terrorist threats.

Someone in the aforementioned group of villainy, in the midst of accusations and retractions made a comment. Someone mentioned a possibility that, although absurd, caught the eyes of my roommate and myself. Someone said they were going to one of the largest comic book and collectibles conventions on the continent and were planning on unleashing poison gas. Mind you, the gas was supposedly designed to turn people into zombies, but the words stuck out like a freshly raped and bare anus.

Poison gas. Comic Con.

Posion gas. Comic Con.

Poison.

Gas.

Comic Con.

Now, my roommate some time ago came up with an interesting philosophical question. A good man, my roomie. Somewhat clever, gifted in creation yet terribly needs to get laid. Nonetheless, he posed an interesting moral debate. If in a story of fiction or what if scenario, he had unleashed to the world a tale of terror at one such convention, someone decided to smuggle a real firearm amongst the props or even a real melee weapon into the convention, or even pulled a sword, axe, spiked club or other means of pain and death from a table in the hall and started to unleash fury and fire, hurting, maiming, scarring and perhaps killing people before being stopped by the security or even heroic Samaritans attending the convention, would the writer of fiction be responsible for the attacks and deaths to occur in real life?

It's certainly food for thought lately. Warning labels on commercials where people are advised the stunts are being done by professionals or simulated by graphics, do not attempt yourselves. People are easily outraged by acts of stupidity witnessed by media. Most know it's foolish and ridiculous to attempt such a thing. But then there are the dumb fucks who prove mankind are less steps away from the cave than we like to believe by imitating the act, outrage makes people want to claim someone responsible, but NO! Not the parents who should have taught the child better, blame the media! Sue them, take the money from those telling the tale! It'll make those touched by the senseless act of the mentally depraved feel better while spending it on doctor bills, new houses and cars, or maybe even a gold wheelchair like the one Larry Flynt uses! SHINY!

Of course, people rallied to the defense of my roommate's question. Of course you're not responsible for the actions of someone taking real actions to harm, terrorize, maim, cripple, kill or torture by posing a scenario. It's not his intentions to make a play-by-play book for a psychopath. So while one might feel a damning crush to one's soul to have their works and words twisted by a madman, unless you're specifically saying you will do such a thing, or are trying to inspire a monkey see monkey do fucktard into doing it, you're not responsible.

But think about it though. All those prop weapons, commerce and economy, people having fun and usually mean no harm to anyone. Could you imagine someone walking in dressed in military fatigues and a fake SG-1 patch armed with real P-90's, pistols, homemade weapons freshly baked from the Anarchist Cookbook unleashed, burning, slashing, stabbing, bludgeoning the crippled kid in the wheelchair and Starfleet costume, firing on the guy behind the Battlestar Galactica display, running a store owner through with a sword from his own weapons display? And remember those lunatics I mentioned earlier who would be stupid enough to do anything for a case of beer and a promise the leader may or may not plan to keep? Imagine more than one of them all attacking at once, taking on 60 year old woman security guards, unleashing molotov cocktails on priceless figures and comics, unleashing total carnage, a terrorist act worthy of The Joker. Hell, the main guy might even dress as The Joker! Why not? And get it all on camera, you'd make a killing in bootleg downloads and DVD sales! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

Then of course comes the consequences. A senseless act of horror and terrorism unleashed upon the truly innocent. People in mourning, trying to make sense of the carnage, asking why it happened, who was responsible? The most frightening part would come if the brains behind it survived or even committed suicide with a prerecorded media message. Maybe he thought The Joker was such a wonderful villain, he had the right idea. So to join the ranks of Megatron, the original Transformers toy shaped like a real gun being responsible for very real deaths as policemen thought children holding such a replica had a real gun pointed on them made them fire and slay a child in perceived self-defense, that this icon needs to be immortalized in true blood. The psychopath destroying things of value to someone else, tainting the innocence of such a gathering based on ideals of heroism, tales of adventure and unifying themes in fiction destroyed by real, good old fashioned senseless destruction on the whims of a deluded madman. He simply thought it would be funny as hell to watch it all burn.

Quite a vivid portrait, isn't it? And not one people often think about, but one people would surely be willing to shell out good money for. But for all my love of Schadenfreude and wanting to watch the train wreck happen from a distance, I know enough not to unleash such acts without proper cause, provocation or even true desire. Nope, not interested in it. The consequences of such an action? Not for me. So I conceive it, but do not act. But for all the patience and restraint one such as myself may display, there may well be someone who wont' show such restraint. So the question is asked. What if such a threat, outrageous as it may seem, had a air of truth to it? Hell, the movie The Serpent and the Rainbow was based on a true story, documentaries have been made of creating Haitian zombie powder using the toxin of puffer fish, what if someone decided to try his homemade batch? Or what if it wasn't really zombie gas at all, but a flamethrower, or a mix of household chemicals that'll do more than clean your floors and clogged pipes?

One of the worst potential threats one could face is the one that seems so outrageous that it seems laughable, not to be taken seriously until unleashed in all its horrific glory. So, to put my roommate's mind at ease, I decided to help in a legally responsible way. I contacted the administrators of Comic Con, the San Diego PD, the San Diego branch of the FBI, and even to try and give them an exclusive for coverage, the G4 news department. They were broadcasting from the con live after all.

Oh, that's right, I did say threats. Plural.

Apparently someone else on the aforementioned league of paper terrorists made comments that could also be seen as threats against anyone in a costume doing more than having fun at the con, acting like responsible citizens if they tried to act up or start shit. Someone who from the grapevine had military training. Oh no, I can't see why anyone wouldn't respond to such words. Did I say wouldn't? I meant WOULD AND SHOULD.

In a post-Columbine, Ruby Ridge, Waco and 9/11(that's right, I went there, deal with it) world, despite a disclaimer on another page saying nothing on such a board should be taken seriously, it is my belief that it is utter stupidity to the level of sliding down the evolutionary ladder like it was greased with industrial strength super lube freshly squeezed from San Francisco to say you're going to unleash poison gas at a crowded convention, and joke about hanging out around the air vents! It's also my observation that it's complete and utter arrogance that no one should take any actions seriously by a person to make a claim of attack and action against others in the same span of days when a potentially damaging comment made on another on the same site was retracted, only to be followed up by someone who has engaged in cyber-bullying by exposing the name, photo and location of a minor who was harassing them, only to yank it down quickly in a high-tech game of peekaboo.

If you want a lesson in villainy? I'll be happy to elucidate. I don't care about the context, the disclaimers or the attempt to hide behind parody. I don't care because I know firsthand how potentially dangerous it can be. If you're going to dare to call yourselves villain, much less supervillains, never...EVER ...have the gall to be surprised if someone hates you. Villains in their context are supposed to be hated, despised, attacked, defeated, beaten, broken. And despite the laughable nature of the dressings, villainous acts are truth repeated time and time again not to be taken lightly unless proven that the one speaking such threats are so pathetic, so harmless, so utterly incapable of actual harm and danger as to themselves be perceived as jokes. If a guy in a bunny suit comes up to you with a shotgun at a costume party and says they're gonna paint easter eggs with your blood, you could laugh it off. Until the fucking gun goes off, then people found out the hard way how real the threat was.

Villains drag old people for long distances out of the cars they jacked. Villains rape the elderly. Villains carve fetuses out of pregnant women and steal the newborn. Villains sexually assault children, kill them then wrap them in plastic bags and bury them in the back yard. Villains put smiley face stickers on the duct tape of their victims' bodies. Villains go to prison to become better villains and rape their cellmates. Villains steal and slay, creating broken homes over a few dollars and fake jewelery. Villains trick people into dying under the cover of religious beliefs. Villains poison their own soldiers, lie about it for years until many die, then admit they were slipped a potential cure for biological weapons the enemy might unleash, never mind the effects may rival the contagion. The title of supervillain, if any validity is to be given to it, means the actions of such a person are larger, grander, more horrific and dangerous than any of the aforementioned examples. And the examples I see for the followers are to ruin the endings of movies and to steal shopping carts? NIGGER PLEASE!

Oh please, shut the fuck up! Despite my current incarnation's hue beneath the fur and smoke, one of the names Krampus has been called is Black Peter. Chained and working for a Saint during the holidays and doing his dirty work while the good were gifted and the evil were punished. Krampus was a nigger before niggers were niggas, so spare me your outrage and half-handed commentary on political correctness!

I do see the laughable point the group attempted to make. The origins were paved with the gold of good intentions and ridiculous packaging. Witness to injustices by supposed heroes. Wannabes. So they lash out verbally, something I respect. Hell, I even encourage it. But joke and intent or not, it was my perception that lines were crossed. Other examples of such stupidity could be:

Pulling out a machete and saying, "I'm gonna cut your fat ass open and see if any guts fall out! Ha ha, just kidding!"

Children getting a phone call from an 'officer'."Sorry kids, your parents died in a car accident. I'm holding your dad's head in a bag in my hands right now...mmmphh (snicker) Hi I'm Johnny Knoxville, welcome to Jackass!"

How about going into a theater opening night of GI Joe, lighting some smoke bombs and yelling "FIRE!!!! HAHAHAHA, you've been punked!!"

OOO! I have a good one! Posing as a doctor in a health clinic: "Mr. Foreman, we've just double-checked the results of your daughter's blood test. I'm afraid it's more than just pneumonia. Has your daughter had a blood transfusion recently? Hmm, I'm afraid that would explain it. I'm sorry, but your daughter has full blown AIDS. I'm sorry...are you scared? You shouldn't be, you're on Scare Tactics! WOOO! We got you! It was your wife's idea! Oh man, you should've seen the look on your face..."

I'm not one to throw around accusations willy nilly. I am however one to take any threat, any perceived slight upon myself or my friends and blood seriously. And I don't give a flying fuck about the speed of backpedaling on one's words faster than a BMX routine at the Van's Warped Tour halfpipe. Words were thrown that could have harmed a man's reputation, then retracted like a shiv. What else could have been possible and overlooked? So instead of taking the law into my own hands, I took the role of concerned citizen. I let the authorities know of a perceived threat.

So now, eyes are upon us. I had friends going to that convention, to sit and do nothing would be irresponsible if there were even a hair's validity to the threat. To do otherwise would be unconscionable to me. My friends are MY responsibility. I do not say this as a member of a fraternity or gathering of heroes despite friends being potentially threatened, but as one concerned over words spoken perhaps in jest, perhaps with no venom. But spoken and not retracted nonetheless.

I will admit though, I would have loved to revel in the Schadenfreude as such tales of these individuals would be reported, apprehended and held without bond while threatened with the advances of a cellmate who was a convicted pimp who loves to bodybuild and talk of human booster shots in the showers and in the wee hours of the night when the guards aren't watching the monitors as thoroughly as they should while they lay cowering in their cell and crying, "This can't be happening to me! I'm a supervillain!" Don't worry, if it's any consolation, it's not about sex, it's about establishing dominance. Alpha males and bitches. You know, alphas like what supervillains are supposed to be.

Ahhh well.

Now...let's talk about retribution. My advice: DON'T. What are you going to do, kill me? Threaten me, my friends, my family? Find out where I live and send threats, maybe Christmas cards covered in suspicious white powder that after the shock and stress hit and the hazmat teams are called, it turns out to be Arm & Hammer? Or how about other than parodies, cyber-bullying, attempts to hack me or send viruses? I'd rather you didn't. It's illegal. Any such attempts would only prompt me into pointing the law in the direction of any potential enemies I might have made. In fact, I may not be very active on such boards after this is posted. But eyes WILL be watching. I don't want to look upon you with malice. And to be honest, no joke or threat, if any threats were made against me, or worse, anyone I truly cared for, I fear would react badly. I have faced death. My father breathed his last in my face. I saw the one who brought me into life go from everything he raised me to be to dead meat, the light faded from his eyes. I have hunted, I have slain animals not out of malice nor hate. I know what I might be capable of if the worst things happened and doing stupid, illegal things start to seem like good ideas. I don't want to hate you, despite how good the rush might make me feel for a short time. I have asked myself, 'are the things I'm thinking about worth the consequences if I acted on them?' Time and again, I stay on the side of the law and sanity by answering NO. I know the darkness, the evil, the claims of righteous vengeance and fury in the focus of direction against those the mind vilifies, the heart longs to hate and know the freedom of passionate rage. I know it because I have witnessed it, and felt its seduction, spurning its advances. And for this, I keep vigilant against such threats, to protect those which I invoke my love and claim in my circle. I will not fear, but revel in the rush of being alive as I face potential death if someone threatens me. And when it comes to those I care for, I will destroy the monster with honor, and lacking that, becoming a worse beast, more vicious and preparing to unleash a fury that would make a sadist weep for mercy for my dehumanized target.

Under different circumstances, we could have been friends. It's going to take a lot of work for that to happen if desired on either side. Don't dig yourselves into a trench any deeper please. And pray the answer to the question I have asked myself time and again never causes me to stare in a direction you may be and say 'YES'.

Auf Wiedersehen, and may your nightmares remind you how wonderful it feels to be alive,

Krampus